Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Martin P. Welch granted Adnan Syed, the subject of the first season of the hit podcast “Serial,” a new trial after spending 16 years in prison for the murder of his former girlfriend in 1999.

Syed’s lawyer, C. Justin Brown, announced the news Thursday afternoon in a tweet stating “WE WON A NEW TRIAL FOR ADNAN SYED!!!,” with the hashtag #FreeAdnan.

Syed was convicted of Hae Min Lee’s murder in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison. He maintained his innocence, however.

Welch ruled Syed deserved another trial because his attorney failed to cross-examine a cell tower expert about the reliability of data that placed Syed’s cellphone near the burial site.

Syed’s defense challenged the testimony of an AT&T engineer whose sworn statements on cellphone data were used to link Syed to the park where Lee’s body was buried. The engineer, Abraham Waranowitz, said he was not shown a crucial disclaimer about cell tower data that would have affected his testimony in the murder trial.

“Serial” led to speculation about Syed’s guilt and whether he had received a fair trial. The podcast was downloaded more than 100 million times and won a Peabody Award for its role in illuminating flaws in the criminal justice system.

When asked if he thought the retrial could have come about without “Serial,” Brown said at a press conference in Baltimore on Thursday afternoon, “I don’t think so.”

“I’m feeling pretty confident right now,” Brown added on the possibility of Syed’s release. “This was the biggest hurdle. It’s really hard to get a new trial.”

“Serial” recently ended its second season about U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Sign Up for Daily Insider Newsletter

Yeun Seung-ro has been appointed as CEO of CGV Mars Entertainment, the Korean-owned company that operates Turkey’s largest cinema chain. He replaces Kwak Dong Won, another veteran of the CJ-CGV group. The change of personnel may reflect two ongoing battles within the Turkish film industry. CJ-CGV, which bought Mars for some $650 million in 2016. [...]

Chinese video streaming firm iQIYI lost over $1.3 billion in 2018, as revenues and subscriber numbers ballooned. The deepening losses reflected ever higher spending on original content production. Announcing its first full-year financials since a March IPO that launched it onto the NASDAQ, iQIYI said that it lost $1.3 billion (RMB9.1 billion) last compared with [...]

Time’s Up has announced in a statement posted to Instagram that its former president and CEO Lisa Borders, who resigned Feb. 18, did so after her son was accused of sexual assault in a “private forum.” “Within 24 hours, Lisa made the decision to resign as President and CEO of Time’s Up and we agreed [...]

Graham Burke, the Australian film industry veteran, is to step down from Village Roadshow by the end of the year. His move follows a period of feuding among the family owners, and significant corporate restructuring. Describing the 2018-19 financial year, which runs to June, as a “reset and transition to FY20,” the group presented a [...]

One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson has signed with Arista, sources tell Variety. While the singer was formerly linked with Epic Records in 2017, he is signed directly to Simon Cowell’s Syco label and will move within the Sony Music family to Arista. Tomlinson teased a new single on Feb. 2, posting on Twitter, “Just heard the [...]

UPDATED: A Chicago judge set a $100,000 bond for Jussie Smollett on Thursday, as the “Empire” actor made his first court appearance. Smollett faces one felony count of filing a false police report. Police allege that Smollett staged a Jan. 29 attack, telling detectives that he was accosted by two men who used racial and [...]

The estate of Michael Jackson sued HBO on Thursday, accusing the cable channel of violating a non-disparagement clause by agreeing to run “Leaving Neverland,” a documentary accusing Jackson of sexual abuse. The suit seeks to compel HBO to litigate the matter in a public arbitration process, and claims that the estate could be awarded $100 [...]